Sunday, August 13, 2017

If you live in Utah the latest craze is CHIP. CHIP is a chocolate chip cookie take-out and delivery joint started by BYU students. They only serve chocolate chip cookies and it will cost you $10 minimum for a box of 4 huge, warm cookies. Not a bad business plan at all! In fact, they are brilliant! I must say that they are pretty dang good. However, there is one element that is missing from the cookie and I hope they can correct it. In my opinion, there isn't enough salt. I love the balance between sweet and salty and CHIP cookies definitely need more salt. Other than that, I love the thick, warm cookie. If you're in the Provo area, check out CHIP and support their business.

If you like your cookies with more salt try these cookies! The recipe is an adaption of Jacques Torres' famous chocolate chip cookies. My husband and I have been making these for years but we don't make them very often because the dough has to chill for at least 24 hours and our impatience gets the best of us. But the 24 hours is worth the wait if you can plan ahead.

After 24 hours of the dough chilling, use a big scoop (this is a 1/2 cup scoop) or a spoon to dish out the dough. If you don't have a 1/2 cup scoop, form the dough into a ball about the size of a tennis ball. Place on a cookie sheet lined with parchment paper and sprinkle some high quality sea salt on top. It doesn't take much. There is also salt in the dough.

One of the reasons why we only can get about 15 cookies out of one batch is because the dough disappears within the 24 hours of chilling. ;) However, the end result is worth it!

Thursday, August 10, 2017

I love the new school year. Being a former teacher myself, I wanted my own children to love school and learning too.

When we moved from another state to Utah my daughter was enrolled at a new school with new classmates. We threw a Back-to-School Party for her and some of the kids her age in the neighborhood after school on the first day. We got a few pics of the setup before the kids arrived.

When the kids arrived, we ate. They grabbed a cute, divided lunch tray and loaded up on some snacks: grapes, apples, veggies and ranch, Goldfish crackers, M&M cookies, chocolate milk and water.

SIDE NOTE: I had some parents ask about the trays. I found them HERE on Amazon by Nordic Ware. I love that they are the perfect size. They hold a small milk container (as shown in the pic above) perfectly in a square space. They also hold a kid's IKEA cup, clear plastic cup (like the one holding the veggies in the pic above), or a small water bottle (pic below) perfectly in the round space. The large space is perfect for a hamburger or sandwich.

We filled some pencil boxes from Walmart with a few school supplies as a favor for our guests. The black tablecloth is from Dollar Tree. A white Sharpie marker works perfectly to add the labels on the tablecloth.

I took a picture of each child on their first day of school in the desk. (I had the 3 year old pose for this pic to see what it would look like and I forgot to take a pic of my own 1st grader! Oops.) I printed the pictures and delivered them later to our guests' homes along with a darling First Day of School questionnaire they filled out. The darling questionnaire can be found at Yellow Bliss Road.

We also played a couple of games to get to know each other and get excited for school. I was going to try the "shoe" game where the kids take off their shoes and try to guess whose is whose but it was too easy. So, I opted to try sitting in a circle and while tossing a bean bag, ask a question like "do you have any brothers or sisters? or, What's your favorite color? or, Do you have any pets?" etc. The person who receives the bean bag answers the question and then asks another question to another person while tossing the bean bag.

The second game included a tray of school supplies. They got to look at the tray for 1 minute. I took the tray away and then they tested their memories by trying to remember what was on the tray. Smart kids!

The kids had a great time and my daughter felt a little more comfortable making friends with the kids in the neighborhood.